[lug] new distro

[Nate Duehr]

> Wow!  Is it "Trolling for Debian Day" again already!

No, I just like Debian, and agree with (most) of their philosophies and
generally think the distro gets a lot of grief when people try to compare it
to commercial distros.  It's not one.  It doesn't even claim to be one.  It
comes through 100% on its claim to be the most stable distro, by far.  As
long as you run "stable" and your hardware's supported.

It's a volunteer effort, and folks always forget that.  Everything in it is
100% "fixable", given the right mix of talent, time, and willingness.
Usually all of the above are in short-supply.  There's rarely any short
supply of complaints about the install process, yet rarely does anyone offer
suggestions on how to fix it.

So... the answer is... "it is what it is -- until you offer to fix it..."
Deep, eh?  No trolling, just truth.

To say I've never been critical of Debian ever would also be wrong, I have
been super-critical of at least one portion of Debian in the past, but that
was in regards to the process to become a new maintainer in the project.

They've made many changes in that process since that time, and I bet it
would be much less "painful" than a few years ago.

The complaints about the download methods for ISO images are so old... so
very old... and the reasons have been explained on the website and in the
mailing lists so many times, it's just not worth arguing about it anymore.
The truth is, the project runs on donations -- if there aren't enough ISO
mirrors, then there aren't enough people donating machines and bandwidth
capable of hosting them.  No emotional content implied or needed.  Just
fact.

The only appropriate response is -- don't like it? -- cough up
mega-bandwidth, a server, an admin for those, and the problem's solved.
(GRIN)  Seriously.  And very few of us are in a position to do that.

Forgive me if that seems too "black and white".  :-)  Or like I was trying
to troll or be mean, I wasn't.

Debian changes from within... anyone can join in the process by discussing
it on their mailing lists, which for the most part are open to the public.

One of the costs of wanting free software to change is giving of oneself to
change it... I think we're all aware of that... right?  And with the source
open to all, literally ANYONE with enough motivation can affect changes for
the better.  The whole point of Free Software, eh?

--
Nate Duehr, nate at natetech.com